Chapter Text
In an upper-middle class apartment on the edge of the city Kuwabara, Yusuke, Hiei and Kurama sat around a table in the kitchen. Kurama had his hands folded neatly in front of him. His eyes were half lidded and he looked around the table with an easy smile on his face. Yusuke was to his left staring down at his hand with intense focus. Every once in a while he looked up at the others quickly but then went back to his hand. Hiei was to the left of him. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his teeth grit. The little fire demon was resisting the urge to rub at the seal that had been placed by Kurama over his Jigan. To Hiei's left Kuwabara looked around the table multiple times.
After a long stretched of silence Hiei shifted. "Are going to sit here all night? Someone do something!" The little fire demon bristled in annoyance, filling the air around him with heat.
"I raise by eight hundred and twenty yen!" Yusuke shouted slammed the money in the middle of the table, added it to an already over flowing pile. Hiei quickly looked over to his right where the detective was and then picked up his cards. After concentrating on them a moment he looked back to the detective. He stared at him a moment before a sizzling sound issued from his forehead.
"Hey, no cheating shorty!" Kuwabara shouted from Hiei's left.
The fire demon glared at him while wincing at the pain the seal was causing him. "Why you are so opposed to simply ensuring that you are victorious by any means necessary I'll never know." The spikey hair man glared across the table for four at the serenely smiling Kurama. "Not that I am able to do that anyway in this particular challenge."
Kurama smiled while titled his head slightly to the side. "Why Hiei. You sound so upset. What's the fun of a game of chance if you're going to cheat?"
Hiei snorted at that. "Lying fox. Poker is not a game of chance. It is a game where the skill to fool and manipulate your opponents through subtle trickery allows you to win." At that sentence Hiei broke into a grin. "I'd bet you were taught to play a game like this as training when you were a child."
At that mocking comment both Yuusuke and Kuwabara burst to a fit of howling laughter. Kurama sat, still smiling, and shook his head. "Now, now. There's no need to be so biting. Do you see Yuusuke's raise, Hiei?"
The fire demon ceased his chuckled but still smiled. "I do," he said before throwing another six coins in the pile on the middle of the table.
"So do I!" Kuwabara shouted as he threw his share into the pool.
"Just barely," Heie muttered eyeing the now empty place for coins in Kuwabara's corner of the table.
The orange haired man glared. "Hey shut up Hiei! Don't you know it's bad form to count your winnings before the game's over?" Hiei glanced at the man but then flicked his eyes down to his own large pile of winnings.
"Whatever you say," he responded before looking at Kurama. "Now you fox. Hold or fold?"
Kurama looked down at his cards contemplatively for the slightest moment before and expression flashed across his face, but it was gone before it could be read. "I see Yuusuke's raise and raise myself by the sum of 4,000 yen." While the other three men stared in shock Kurama shifted to pull out his wallet and retrieved two bills from inside it. Throwing the bills on the pile he smiled. Hiei, Yuusuke and Kuwabara shifted. From the table two Shureimon stared up at them temptingly.
Hiei looked at his pile of winnings and threw his cards face down. "Fold," he said miserably.
Yuusuke looked at the fire demon and threw his card down too. He didn't even have enough to meet the raise. "Fold," he muttered.
Kuwabara stared at the bills for a moment before glancing at Kurama. "I see your raise."
With wide eyes Kurama stared at the younger man. "Kazuma? Really? You don't have anything left to bet with."
"Hiei, lemme borrow some money," the orangette said quickly.
"Not on your life, oaf. Risk you own winnings." The fire demon glared and his hand inched ever so slightly to his sword.
"Yuusuke?" Kuwabara said in a hopeful tone.
"Man I don't even have enough to meet it myself!" Yuusuke sighed while shaking his head.
Kuwabara looked back at Kurama. "Lemme raise without having it. If I lose, I'll work you for you for ten yen an hour until I pay you back."
Kurama took in the serious look on his friends face before nodding. "Alright," the fox said. "Fine. Considering you have no more money left from the last raise that makes … four hundred hours of service to me."
Yuusuke sputtered and leaned forward. "400 hours! That's like …" Yuusuke stopped and thought. "More than a week right?"
"Fool!" Hiei quipped. "It's over two weeks!" Yuusuke looked at the fire demon with wide eyes but before he could speak Kurama spoke first.
"Yes," the red-head agreed. "It would be nearly seventeen days if completed all at once."
Yuusuke looked at Kuwabara. "Don't do it Kazuma! If you lose, who knows what sorts of things Kurama will have you do!"
Hiei smirked at this while Kurama frowned.
"I wouldn't do anything awful!" Kurama insisted.
"He could give him to me," Hiei muttered sadistically.
"No!" all three of the other men said at once. Hiei scoffed angrily before sinking into his chair and sulking.
"Kazuma, don't do it! It's dangerous!" Yuusuke leaned across the table and glared to make his point.
"I don't care. I'm doing it." Kuwabara said. "I see your bet Kurama, with 400 hours of service!"
Yuusuke flopped back in his chair with a groan; Hiei muttered the word fool and Kurama nodded once. Then Kuwabara showed his hand: three sixes of spades, clubs and hearts, with a two of clubs and a three of spades.
Yuusuke immediately nearly fell out of his chair while Hiei began to laugh. "Three sixes? You bet over two weeks of your life on three sixes?" the black hair man shouted in anger. Hiei said nothing but just laughed in his corner of the table.
Kuwabara frowned and puffed out his chest without saying anything as Yuusuke went into a rant about his stupidity. Half-way through the detective's rant Hiei regained the ability to speak.
"So what is the idiot going to have to do Kurama?" the fire demon asked. Yuusuke then settled down and looked at Kurama.
"Kurama. Remember, he's your friend," Yusuke muttered.
"Never mind that, fox!" Hiei chuckled. "What is the oaf going to have to do?"
Kurama looked around the table at each of his friends before smiling a little. "Figure out how to spend all that money, I suppose," he muttered nicely before laying his card face up on the table. They were a two of hearts, a three of diamonds, a six of diamonds, an eight of hearts and a nine of clubs. Yuusuke and Hiei stared with wide eyes.
"Nine high?" Yuusuke muttered. "You raised 4000 yen over nine high?" At this point not even Yuusuke had the energy to rant. He just sat down in his chair, mouth open in disbelief.
Hiei frowned and shook his head. "He was playing us," he muttered. "Damn fox."
Kurama smiled. "Yes. Actually, I was taught a game like poker by my mother when I was a small child. I rather liked it. That was a strategy she taught me. Too bad it didn't work on Kazuma. Now I'm out quite a bit of money."
Kuwabara smiled at his swept the pile towards him. "Heh. I knew you were faking. Not even a fox's lie can fool the great Kuwabara Kazuma!"
Kuwabara was busy gloating and Yuusuke was still in shock, so it was Hiei alone who saw the murderous look that swept through Kurama's eyes before his polite smile returned. The fire demon smiled. Something fun was about to happen.